A Look at the Past
by Hickumu
Summary: "A Night in the Moonlight" sequel. As the years of Loki's sentence go on, he and Thor quietly agree for their life before his fall to stay in the past. It's an agreement that works, until one day in the middle of a battle, Loki nearly falls again, and finds his old fears and memories about that night on the broken Bifrost resurfacing. But can his memories be trusted? Thor wonders.
1. Don't Let Go

_So, yeah. Technically this is the fourth fic in the series. It's actually set a few decades down the line from "A Night in the Moonlight", because Thor and Loki are basically immortal and that's okay with them. The third fic is in progress and takes place only a year or two later, but features the obligatory meeting between Loki and the Avengers and thus has proven really ridiculously complicated to write (because Tony keeps trying to take over the narration). There's one fic planned for after this one to close out this little series, which is at least a lot more planned out, if not yet written._

_The plot of this fic at least proved a little more compact, if no less complicated, so it's being written first. I've already wound up trying a lot of different experimental things here, and I hope they work._

_In the end, I know the entire issue of how in control of himself Loki was during "The Avengers" or how willing a participant he was is up in the air and probably always will be since Joss has apparently decided to drop the whole Thanos plot like a hot potato *grumbles*. But I think there are a few moments that give pretty solid evidence that Loki was not in his right mind. This fic is based on a big one, namely Thor and Loki's talk on the cliff just after he snatches Loki out of the plane. Loki pretty unambiguously says that, as far as he remembers, Thor *threw* him off the Bifrost. "I remember you tossing me into an abyss."_

_I think that's a pretty solid hint that Loki was no longer reading for the same playbook as the rest of us. We saw that the Other could get into his head, so who knows just how much of his life he really remembers as it really happened? And in the end, how do you deal with the idea that what you're remembering might not be what really happened? How do you trust someone else to tell you what really happened without falling into the same trap?_

_Basically, Loki is probably still a very unreliable narrator and I had some fun with that._

_(As for the fighting that happens in the beginning of this fic, I think Loki is totally the kind of guy who would be willing to spend his one day a year helping stop interdimensional rabble from fucking with his home. He's gotten even more protective of it in recent years.)_

* * *

Loki was not afraid of heights. Loki actually quite liked heights. The rush that came with seeing the world spreading out before you, small and manageable and distant, people scurrying around without any idea you were there…it was a powerful thing, and he'd always been drawn to it.

Loki was not afraid of heights.

Loki was _terrified_ of falling.

This wasn't the Bifrost. This wasn't the Void. If he looked down, he could even see the ground, far too far below. He wouldn't fall forever, if he let go.

That didn't matter. Loki did not want to let go. He _wanted_ to pull himself up, but the vast expanse of empty, open air seemed to suck at him, dragging him down, waiting to swallow him up before breaking him to pieces, and it was all he could do to resist the pull enough to hold on to the edge of the cliff. His body felt like it weighed tons, and his mind was a whirl of fear. _Don't let go, please don't let go, I don't want to fall, I can't hold on, not again…_

"Loki!"

And normally, the sound of Thor's voice didn't fill him with fear anymore. Normally, he felt safe around Thor, and trusted him – not without reservations, but the trust extended to him wasn't without reservation, either, so at least that was _fair_ and _equal_ as they hadn't been for years before.

Normally, there was an unspoken agreement to just leave the past where it was. They'd both tried to kill one another in the past, they'd both taken advantage of the other being vulnerable to strike to kill, but things were different, now, they were brothers…

All the same, as Thor stumbled to a stop at the edge, staring down at him in wide-eyed horror, a surge of hot, suffocating _fear_ bloomed in his chest and his nerveless fingers almost lost their grip. For a moment, as his gaze met Thor's, Loki was _back there_, at the shattered Bifrost, and the only thing keeping him from the cold embrace of the Void was Thor's grip on the shaft of the Great Spear.

_He'd tried to pull himself up, he hadn't wanted to fall, he'd been trying with all his remaining strength to hold on. And then Thor had _looked_ down at him and something in his eyes had become _decided_ and Loki had had just enough time to feel his older brother shake him loose. Surprise and shocked betrayal had made him lose his grip, and Loki's last thought before the darkness swallowed him up had been that Thor would be able to claim it had been an accident…_

Loki was jerked violently back to the present by Thor's hands, closing around his wrists. Thor was saying something, but Loki couldn't hear, couldn't understand over the roar of panic and the thudding of his heart in his ears. The only thought remaining in his head was that it was happening again, Thor had seen his chance to be rid of his mistake of a brother and he was going to take it…

But rather than being pushed, there was the feeling of being _pulled_, a brief rush of air _up_ and then the ground, blessedly so solid beneath him that the impact of being settled _safely_ on it left Loki breathless.

He felt dizzy. He didn't understand. What had happened, why hadn't he fallen…?

"Loki!"

Thor's hands were on his shoulders now, shaking him. Loki staggered a bit, and heard himself whimper at the suddenly unsteady feeling. Feeling himself start to panic anew, the solid ground no longer enough, he tried to push Thor away. "Don't," he whispered, his breath coming in short sharp gasps that left him unable to raise his voice loud enough for anyone to hear him and _help_ him, as though anyone would. "No, don't, not again…"

Thor didn't let him go. His older brother held his hands instead, clasping them both tightly in both of his. And Loki realized, after a beat, that his hands weren't the only ones shaking.

He didn't understand. When Thor's gaze caught his and held it, Loki saw a storm of fear roiling just beneath the surface, and he didn't understand that, either.

"No," Thor said quietly. "Not again. I will never let you go again, brother, I swear it."

Loki couldn't have said anything in reply if he'd been able to. There was still a battle to be won, and Sif and the Warriors Three could only keep the enemy off their backs for so long. Thor fought, and Loki fought, because even when turned to stone by fear there were a lot of things he would rather do than die, and with his hands free to wield a spear or throw magic around, there were a lot of things he _could_ do, rather than die. With the six of them together, it wasn't long before the strike force lay dead, bodies scattered around under the cold sun, and they could return to Asgard for a report…and to return Loki safely to his cell for another year.

Loki didn't really register the next while. The aftermath of such paralyzing terror, the _strangeness_ of what had happened next, Thor's behavior…in the end, he didn't admit it, he would never admit it, but Loki was glad when the door of his cell closed and locked, and he was able to sit and close his eyes and bask in the feeling of the castle, sturdy and safe and all around him.

He'd finally understood, after one particularly long battle had kept him away from Asgard for days, that his punishment wasn't just a punishment. It was a _chance_, a chance to reconstruct all his defenses and foundations that had been so cracked and shaken by his heritage, his fall, by the Tesseract, the Other. The foundations of the castle could be his foundations, at least for a time, while he rebuilt his own.

This was a cell, but it was _safe_. He'd learned long ago how to let any buildup of emotion leech out of him, into the stones, there to join millennia of sensations good and bad. It was a good feeling, like bleeding out poison. Whenever he felt his thoughts turning dark and tangled, he could sometimes keep them from turning in on himself. He could sometimes _control_ himself, tucked away in the walls of this place that _was his home_.

He took advantage of that fact, now, trying to think about the events of the day without losing himself.

Had it been an apology? Of course, Thor hadn't admitted to pushing Loki off the bridge that night. And Loki had never tried to make himself believed, because who would believe him over Thor? But why had he lied right then, to him, when only Loki could hear him? When Loki had confronted Thor once before with the fact that he remembered what had really happened?

He'd thought Thor knew better than to try and lie to him, of all people.

Perhaps it hadn't been a lie at all. Perhaps, now that Loki was home, his older brother was simply feeling guilty. So guilty that he was trying to rewrite reality to avoid confronting what he'd done, trying not to remember that he'd been the cause of Loki's fall. Yes, that sounded about right. Loki could understand why Thor had done it. That hadn't made it _okay_, but…he'd understood.

But of course his sentimental fool of a brother wouldn't have been able to cope with himself. That was why he'd always needed Loki around, to take those unpleasant but ultimately necessary steps for him. Loki found himself smiling at the thought, feeling, of all things, a newfound surge of affection for his older brother.

They'd both betrayed one another, fought and _hurt_ one another, piling vengeance upon vengeance for years worth of pain. It was a fact that they both acknowledged but didn't talk about anymore. The past could stay safely the past, and another two hundred or so years would put it even further out of mind.

A knock on the door brought Loki out of his thoughts. He started in surprise, blinking muzzily…and then he sighed, feeling tired all over again. Thor didn't even have to call out to ask if he was awake before Loki knew who was there.

The past could stay safely the past, provided Thor was willing to leave it there as well.


	2. What Can't Be Believed

"I suppose it isn't yet midnight, then?" Loki asked in reply to the question. Thor had come up with what was, for him, a fairly impressive loophole in the laws of Loki's isolation. After all, he was entitled to remove Loki from his cell for one day each year. A day didn't technically end until midnight, and in the years before, Loki had often been returned to his cell a few hours beforehand. So, by rights, there was no reason they couldn't just sit and talk for a while, after whatever mad endeavors Thor had come up with for the day were done.

It was a loophole Thor didn't exploit much, because Thor still did not have a manipulative bone in his body, and that was just as well, because even Odin's patience would only stretch so far. But once or twice in years past, he would stay and they would talk until someone, usually Sif, sometimes Fandral – who seemed to have been warming up to Loki well in recent years – came down to warn him of midnight's approach. Or sometimes they wouldn't talk, usually because a day outside after a year in his cell left Loki with a lot to think about. Thor would just sit, just a familiar, warm _presence_ just out of reach but still nearby, and…that was okay.

"We have a few hours yet," came Thor's reply. Loki wasn't sure he wanted to talk tonight, and yet…and yet something had been brought up between them that they'd hoped to leave buried. Neither of them had meant for it to happen, but it had happened. Maybe it had been a sign that the time for silence was done.

So Loki sat back against the door with a sigh. A few seconds ticked by, as both brothers tried to figure out how to proceed on this battlefield of a topic, and they both made the attempt at once:

"I was thinking about…"

"I wanted to ask you…"

And then silence once more. When Thor attempted to speak this time, Loki let him.

"Before, when you…when you nearly fell." It was clearly hard for him to even mention, further reinforcing Loki's theory that guilt, more than anything, was the likely cause of Thor's falsehood. "I understand why you might have been afraid, to find yourself in such a dire strait once more. But when I tried to help you, you nearly pushed yourself off the edge with your panicking. It…it has been years since then, Loki. Is the memory of that night still so hard for you?"

_Don't do that_, Loki wanted to say. _Don't sound so…heartbroken._ Because Thor did, he sounded heartbroken and sad, and Loki had finally reached the point where he could trust what he saw in Thor. He wanted to tell the true reasons for his panic, he wanted to ask Thor what he'd felt, after that night, if he regretted it or if he would have shoved Loki away all over again.

But he didn't, because to hear Thor sound so very sad still made his heart ache. It would do no good, in any case. More than likely, no one but Loki knew what had really happened, and even now, with so much changed, with so much better, no one would believe him over Thor. It would only needlessly damage the life he had slowly begun to take back.

So he forced a smile onto his face, because that would help there be a smile in his voice. "I barely remember it, to be honest," he lied. "I'm not sure what came over me. But I suppose I'll never be as accustomed to battle as you and the others are…"

"Don't," said Thor sharply, cutting him off. "Loki, _please_. I thought we were past lying to one another."

Unbidden, Loki felt a flash of irritation lance through him. On its own, especially with the door between them, that wouldn't have been enough to make him lose control. But he didn't bother too much to disguise the sharpness in his voice as he replied, hoping it might warn Thor off. "Do not ask questions you don't wish to know the answer to, brother."

"I won't," said Thor, stubbornly resolute as ever. "But I wish to know the answer to this. Loki, I…I only wish to understand. I want you to trust us to keep you safe, I want to give you as few reasons to fear for your safety as I possibly can."

"A shame, that. Because back there, your presence was the reason I feared."

He slid the words home like a knife, because Thor was always, _always_ vulnerable to him. Loki felt guilty almost immediately – of course it was easiest to hurt Thor, but that didn't mean he should. The past was the past, he shouldn't have let his foolish brother go digging around where there was no point digging, he should have been a better liar but it had been a very long day, and…

"You still believe I cast you aside, that day?" Thor asked quietly, in a tone of horror and hurt.

Loki took a deep breath, reaching down with his mind to anchor himself even more firmly. He couldn't risk flying apart. He didn't want to fly apart. Things had been going so well, _why_ was Thor suddenly so worried? "I was there, Thor. I know what happened. Please, if we're past lying to one another, extend me the same courtesy. I know why you did it, I'm not still angry with you."

"I never did anything like that! Loki, that night, you are the one who let go of me! I was trying to hold you up, I was ready to do anything to stop you, but you let go of my hand and that is how you fell! You…you truly don't remember?"

"Why would I have let go? Why would I have ever _willingly_ consigned myself to everything that happened next?" Loki couldn't believe what he was hearing, what Thor was trying to say. He knew he'd been half mad when Thor had found him again, that the Tesseract had affected him more than he'd ever let himself believe for a long time. Part of the reason for his imprisonment was to have a safe place to let that poisonous influence leech out of him. But this arrangement had been going on for _decades_, now. Surely Thor didn't think he was still so…_feebleminded_ as to believe such a thing about that night?

"Loki, I don't know. Truly, I don't. And I wondered why too often to count, after that night. I nearly drove myself mad wondering how we drove you to try and take your own life! But brother, I would never have done that to you! Not even when you were at your worst. I only ever wanted to save you!"

Thor sounded sincere. Thor sounded downright _anguished_. And for a moment, Loki found himself doubting. The Other had dug its claws so deeply into him, the Tesseract had twisted his mind and behavior, could that night where so much had changed really have happened as Thor said?

And then Loki shook his head, because he realized that to accept this was to doubt _everything_ about his mind and his memories. He couldn't let that happen, because to believe that even now, his mind was not entirely under his control was a _thought_ that shook him too badly to bear.

"And how do you know that you are remembering events as they truly happened?" Loki asked quietly. "Isn't it just as likely that you threw me away and, rather than live with yourself, remembered that night in such a way that you were spared the blame of what happened next? The end result would be the same. And who would believe my memory of events over yours', even now? Even you don't believe me."

"I…" Thor _hesitated_. Thor actually hesitated. Loki would have sighed with relief if he didn't feel sick at himself and his brother both.

Even so, he did feel grateful when Thor didn't press the point, when he all but _felt_ the other man slump in defeat against the door. That small, defeated gesture told him that Thor at least _understood_ the mental trap he'd been grappling with for hours, and what his older brother said next reinforced this. "I…cannot dispute you," the warrior said softly. "I remember that night one way, and you another. Between the two of us, how can we be certain who remembers events as they truly happened? I cannot believe I would ever have pushed you aside like that, you obviously cannot believe that you would ever have let go. I suppose asking Father to settle this would not be enough to convince you?"

"No." And more than that, Loki did not _want_ to get Odin involved. He didn't want his father to realize that there was even the slightest chance that Loki's mind was still not entirely sound. "Sorry."

All the same, Loki found that he _wanted_ to settle this question, now that it had been dug up and brought to light. But he found that he wanted it settled between himself and Thor, keep it between the two of them, the truth about this moment that had changed so much and was still, much as he tried to ignore it, impacting their lives decades later.

And he thought he had a way to do it.

"Thor…do you trust me?"

It was a very loaded question, even now. When he felt Thor hesitate, Loki couldn't help but feel a pang of hurt in his chest. But that was his own fault. They both knew very well how very good Loki was at lying, and especially at lying to Thor.

But Thor's voice was steady and calm when he replied. "Yes, Loki. I trust you." And maybe it was sentimental and childish to feel so grateful, but Loki couldn't deny that the words made the tight little knot of fear in his chest that had been growing since his almost-fall loosen just a little.

"Do you trust me?" Thor asked in turn.

And Loki suddenly couldn't blame Thor for his earlier hesitation, because he felt himself tense at the words, at everything they could potentially mean. Trust was not something he easily offered. It never was, and likely never would be, because trust made you _vulnerable_ to exactly the sort of attacks he specialized in. Loki knew, better than most, just how easy trust could be turned against the one offering it.

But maybe it was okay that he felt that hesitation. Because Loki found that he still knew the answer, and meant it when he said, "More than anyone. What I'm thinking of trying is just…a way for us to find out the truth. To understand."

Thor could have no idea what Loki was intending, and maybe it was better that way. Loki knew that, if he thought too hard about what he was about to do, he would back away and say whatever he had to in order to bury this matter once more. This was an ultimately impossibly reckless and overemotional thing to do. Thor really was rubbing off on him.

Thor, in turn, could have no idea what course of action Loki was considering, but he answered anyway: "That is all that I have ever wanted between us."

"I know." Loki couldn't help but smile, feeling something warm in his chest as he remembered something Thor had said to him a long time ago. _Then perhaps blood is the start. But it is not the finish._ It had taken a long time, and it was not offered unreservedly. But he did trust Thor, to mean well and mean what he said if nothing else. "You said we had a few hours left? Then just…close your eyes. And wait for me."

He closed his eyes as well, leaning back properly against the door. And then Loki reached out, through the ancient door between them, reached out with his mind to seek and touch and _find_ the familiar mind of his brother.

This was something he had known how to do for a very long time, and had resolved once he had learned it to never use it again. Of course, fate was rarely so accommodating. The Other hadn't given him much of a choice in the matter, and had only reminded him why it was a power even he shied from. Frigga had sought him out in the dark of the Void, and found him, even though he'd only wound up shoving her away all over again. To look into another's mind and see their memories, communicate with them without cumbersome, ineffective _words_ to get in the way of ideas and intentions, was a powerful thing indeed. But finding a way into someone else's mind was to give them a way into your own, and the same, unobstructed view of who and what you were.

To have his soul bared like that was a position of intense vulnerability and utter honesty that he had only ever offered to two people before – mother, who had taught him this magic long ago, and the Other, who had given him no choice. He offered it now to Thor, when he found the familiar warm _presence _of his older brother on the other side of the door, and found the familiar mind waiting for him.

He felt Thor flinch back in surprise at the contact, but Loki held on tightly to him, soothing the warrior's shock at the sensation of mind meeting mind. _No, don't be afraid_, he thought, and like this, in the moment before contact was accepted and established, it was a thought communicated in sensations and memories. The gardens where they'd played as children, the moment of perfect synergy and courage that was fighting back-to-back. _I only want to show you. I only want to see. What you remember. What I remember_. _Will you let me? I'll make certain you're not lost._

He felt Thor hesitate, his mind a confused, uncertain whirl. But just as Loki was about to pull away, Thor seemed to get a handle on how this was supposed to go. _I will allow you_, he thought, and Loki saw all the many times his brother had invited him along on his quests with his friends, and that moment on the tower long ago when Thor had, knowingly or not, opened himself up for a stab. _Please show me_.

_Hold on to me._ Blood-slicked fingers trying to force the life back into Thor as his brother slipped away. Being pulled into Thor's arms when it felt like the world was about to fly apart, and finding a steady point to steer by.

A world…a different world…came into focus around them. In fact, it was two different worlds, one on one side, and one on the other, both joined together by the Bifrost.

Thor understood. Even if he'd never done this before, a fact that Loki was profoundly grateful for, he seemed to understand what had to happen. He went one way, and Loki went the other. Even as their hands parted, the hold remained, a tether to their own memories and a watchful eye on the other.


	3. Through Thor's Eyes

Loki could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

Thor's mind was so…bright.

He wondered if this was normal, if this was how most people looked on the inside. He had dim recollections of what he'd seen of Frigga's mind, long ago, but even then, she had had perfect mastery of magic, and perfect control over her mind. Loki had no doubt that he'd only seen what she'd let him see.

Thor was not so talented, and was not a terribly good liar even in the physical world.

Thor's mind felt like nothing so much as standing in an open meadow in the warm spring sunlight. For a moment, Loki basked in it, the sheer, simple feeling of health and well being and good humor that wasn't his but was all around him still.

And then, when he opened his eyes, when he looked around…Loki still found himself disbelieving.

Because for the first time, Loki saw himself as Thor saw him…and saw his brother as he saw himself.

In Thor's eyes, Loki was bright and brilliant, a glorious machine of intricately crafted moving parts, unknowable and impossible to understand and all the more awe-inspiring for it.

But memories were things colored by the emotions they existed in. And so Loki saw himself grow silent and tarnished and crooked without any outside influence at all. As though he'd just…decided to break, rather than been pushed to that point by everyone around him, subtle little shoves that had eventually sent him falling off the Bifrost and into hell.

The memory brought a deep pang of old resentment back to his heart. Loki tried to force himself to move on, to look away, but such emotional _slips_ were dangerous, like this. Like a knife twisted more deeply into an open wound, he found himself pulled down other paths than the one he'd been searching for. _It doesn't matter anymore_, he tried to tell himself. _The past should stay the past_.

_But you don't really believe that. You wanted this, you asked for this, you opened this door. You must have known some of what you'd see, you utter, utter fool._

_You are a fool. Still, always, and forever. _

He saw all his crimes, flashing past like a roaring, overflowing river, he saw them from Thor's eyes. All the jokes and the tricks that had never been understood, the barbed humor that had cut more deeply than Loki had ever thought.

_He stared up at the impassive figure of the Destroyer, hating himself for whatever he had done to let it come to this. Knowing deep down what he'd have to do to make it stop, to keep everyone safe. Comfortable with that knowledge, at peace with the reality of his own death as it stared him down, because if these good people, these _friends_, were spared Loki's wrath, then…it was worth it. _

_He looked up at Loki from the single empty chair in that cold, empty, mirrored room, feeling his world shattering into pieces around him. The news from home, the truth Loki brought, echoing in his mind like a death knell, over and over again, his father was dead, his father was dead and _it was all his fault_. And yet, as all the fight left him, as he realized that his life might as well be over, a spark of hope remained. A hope that he might at least be spared one torment by another. "Can I come home?"_

_And Loki stared down at him, green eyes perfectly inexpressive and passive, and delivered in a voice of perfect calm all the reasons why Thor would never see home again. "This is good-bye, brother." And Thor smiled, love for his brother mixing with grief for his father. But there was still a part of him that was glad when Loki left for the last time, because that meant he could finally break. _

_He stared out at his brother from the other side of the steel cage, wanting to plead for Loki to stop and knowing because of the huddled corpse against the wall that it would do no good, just staring his little brother in his cold green eyes in mute supplication until Loki hit the button._

_Thor couldn't help but stare as Loki pushed himself up from the ground where he'd landed. There was joy in his heart, because he'd scarcely dared believe it when Mother told him the news, but here was the truth right before his eyes. That Loki was here, Loki was alive…_

_And yet there was also fear, because Loki wasn't right. This pale, sharp creature with a smile like a knife's edge, who looked at him with dark, cautious eyes, who put him in mind of nothing so much as a starving, beaten dog…was this really his brother? How much had Loki really survived the Void. _

_"Oh, I missed you, too," Loki said, something savage in his voice even as he smiled, and Thor wasn't sure he believed it. His brother was, after all, a very gifted liar._

_He struggled with Loki on the tower, grabbed him, tried to turn him out to face the mayhem and destruction he'd wrought for reasons that Thor still could not understand. He begged one last time for Loki to see. "Look at this! Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?!"_

_And for a moment, Loki really had seemed to look, to see, to understand, to fear. He'd stared at Thor without hope, with an exhaustion and weariness that had scared Thor to see, and without malice. "It's too late…it's too late to stop it," he said, and if Loki could not ask for help, even now, Thor meant to offer it anyway. It didn't have to be this way. _

_"No. We can. Together."_

_The brief moment of hope severed like a fraying thread as pain exploded in his side, leaving him crumpled on the tower roof, and yet Thor still managed to hear, over the roar of the war and the sound of his own pain, Loki's voice whisper – alien, disbelieving, "Sentiment…"_

But like a drowning man spinning in the current, bouncing off rocks, Loki caught sight of one last chance to hold on before he was sucked under for good, and he _seized _it. One memory bled into another in his disorientation and loss, but in the end, that proved just as well. It gave him a rope to climb to safety.

_"You give up the Tesseract…you give up this poisonous dream…you come _home!_"_

_"Because this is my home, and I will not let them take it from me!" _

_"And I look forward to the day when you can be by my side once more, tempering my foolish ways. Until then, brother. I wish you well."_

Loki righted himself with a wrenching effort of will, feeling his dream self shudder with weakness and exertion.

He knew that he should end the spell now. He knew that he was in no fit state to go on, that he risked losing himself all over again, bleeding into Thor's mind and memories until there was nothing left of _him._ He knew that he should turn back, that knowing the truth wasn't as important as the risk that went with seeking it.

He steadied himself, shoving the hesitations aside. Those same hesitations had nearly drowned him once before. No, there would be no way out until he found what he'd been seeking. Trying to leave now would only get him more lost. He had to follow the path he'd set for himself when he'd made this contact with Thor, and follow it to the end.

Loki followed his lifeline back to the beginning, and started again.

In Thor's eyes, his brother was…normal. Strangely so. Memory was not a logical thing, and most people were not so self aware. But Loki regarded the Thor of the past and saw only his brother. Of course, he seemed a bit brighter and stronger and younger than he did now, but he had been less weighed down then than he was now. Less burdened with the fate of two worlds and the protection of his handful of mortal friends and lovers on top of all his subjects. All the many years and battles and hardships had dimmed him somewhat from what he'd been. Even the strongest warrior showed his age eventually, and Thor had lived a full warrior's life in the past few decades alone.

Selfishly, perhaps, Loki found that he did not mind. Nowadays, looking up at Thor was not so much like looking up into the sun.

All the same, he found himself uncertain of what to make of this…strangeness, this violation of what he knew of the landscapes of memory. So it was with a strange sense of disquiet and a newfound purpose that Loki focused instead on what he'd come here to see.

He found it.

And, even knowing what to expect, he could still scarcely believe what he saw.

_They dangled together like a kite in the wind over the edge of the shattered Bifrost. The explosion had been enough to knock them both clear of the bridge's surface, should have sent them both tumbling down. Dazed, Thor looked down and saw Loki looking back up at him, saw his brother's hand clutched tightly around the shaft of Gungnir. Thor was holding him up by the spear's other end. _

_Then Thor looked up, and saw his father standing there, awake and alive and tired, so clearly tired, but standing tall and strong and holding them both back from the darkness. Thor felt relief swell up in his chest until it felt like his heart would burst. _

_At first, when he heard Loki call up from beneath him, Thor heard only joy in his younger brother's voice. For a moment, they were united once more, two sons who were happy just to have their father back. _

_And then Thor heard what Loki was saying._

_"I did it for you, father! For all of us!" _

_Thor felt his already broken heart shatter into pieces that felt like they were slicing him open from the inside. That wasn't just joy in Loki's voice. That was desperation, a frantic need to make their father understand. It couldn't have been clearer that, even now, Loki didn't understand how things had come to this point. Why Thor had had to make him stop. _

_Looking up at Odin, he saw a similar sadness there. Sadness, exhaustion, and something like…defeat._

_"No, Loki," said Odin, in a soft, somber voice that nevertheless carried down to the both of them over the rush of water and the howling wind. _

_Thor felt something _change_, a subtle shifting in the world, a feeling of creeping terror deep in the pit of his stomach. Some brotherly sense led him to look back down at Loki._

_His brother looked…numb. All the rage and emotion he'd mustered during his fight with Thor seemed to wash out of him like the water, at their father's denial, tumbling into nothingness. All that was left in his brother's red-rimmed eyes was a hollow sadness and a _pain_ that cut Thor to the bone just to see._

_Thor knew, then, what was about to happen. He also knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it. _

_He tried anyway. "Loki, _no_!" Thor screamed desperately. It didn't have to be this way, they could fix this, they could talk, understand, he would be a better brother now…_

_But he didn't have time to say everything he wanted to. It was all for nothing. Loki let go, and he fell into darkness. _

It wasn't polite, to say the least, to go wandering through someone's memories unbidden. He had permission to be here, yes, but it was a right even Loki could appreciate should not be abused. More than that, Loki found himself afraid to see what happened next. _Did you mourn?_ he had asked Thor. Thor had said yes, and even now, Loki wasn't sure which possibility bothered him more – the idea that his brother might have been lying to soothe him, or that he'd been honest.

He did not want to see his own funeral, if they'd even held one for him at all. And yet, he also found himself strangely, morbidly fascinated by the idea, the same sort of feeling he had now when standing at the edge of a long drop. The spell responded to his subconscious wishes, his conscious hesitations like so much fog, and Loki saw anyway.

It wasn't a clear picture. It was a foggy time, clouded blue and black and dark with grief so keen that Loki felt it in his chest. Thor seemed to be little more than a dead thing himself, cold in body and spirit. Loki felt his loneliness, his self-imposed isolation from the people who _loved_ him. Loki felt him wondering _how did it come to this, how did I not see, I should have done, should have been, should have said, Loki, brother, I am so sorry…_

The week of mourning seemed to pass in an eternity and a blink before the feast. The fact that they even had one at all for him was surprising, and inexpressibly heartwarming. He hadn't dared believe they would. He'd been an attempted kinslayer, a usurper in their eyes, and not well liked by then besides by anyone beyond his family, saving Sif and the Warriors' tolerant, almost habitual affections. By all the rights and codes of Asgard, no matter how wronged he'd been, he hadn't deserved that sort of honor.

But there was a feast, and there were even stories, not all of them prompted by a slightly more lively Thor. He caught the memory of genuine laughter, and hints of regret and loss and warmth in faces besides that of his brother, father, and mother.

It was always easier, of course, to speak well of the dead.

_If only I had truly died_, Loki caught himself thinking wistfully. Seeing this now, his fall really seemed like not a bad place to end his twisted up life. Clawing his way back into forgiveness, family, friendship, _life_ had not been an easy road, even if Thor had been relentless in making sure he would not walk it alone.

The memory of that affection saved Loki from going under again. Thor had never been skilled with words, even honest, plain ones, and so at some point he seemed to have decided to speak his love for Loki with actions instead. Whenever they were together, now, Thor was forever clapping him on the back, squeezing his shoulder, holding his hand, getting his attention with a warm hand pressed to the back of his neck, pulling him close in an embrace that felt like the safest armor and the softest blanket all at once, leaving him feeling warm and close instead of shadowed and cold…

After Loki had realized the true reason for this surge of proud declarations of affection…he'd stopped minding so much. Because Thor really had come to understand a few very important things over the last few years. One of those being that there were some things Loki would just never be able to say or seek. That Loki was proud and would never be otherwise and to expect him to be otherwise was a disservice, and so the idea of such simple things as reaching for physical comfort or asking for reassurance still chilled him with the fear of weakness, of mockery, of being slapped aside, irrational fears but no less _suffocating_ for it...

Thor gave freely what Loki still could not ask for, said what Loki still could not bring himself to say, and Loki loved him all the more for it. The effort was clumsy, but…endearingly so, and sincere.

_And all those memories of affection were tinged with a veil of gold, shining like the halls of their childhood, of their home, and the memories of the precious few times Loki had been able to unreservedly return those affections were tucked away like artifacts more precious than were guarded by the Vault._

_Loki still did not find it easy to trust, and probably never would. But in that moment, he trusted that Thor knew his efforts were valued, even if Loki's silver tongue might never find the words to say as much. _


	4. Through Loki's Eyes

The sensation of walking through Loki's memories was like wandering through a museum and simultaneously watching a movie projected everywhere at once. It wasn't a precise process. Finding one memory, one _moment_, in hundreds and hundreds of years, when neither brother was entirely certain what they were looking for, took time and trial and error.

And then Thor realized that one memory wasn't the problem. There was a sickness in Loki's mind that extended far beyond the moment where he'd let go and let himself fall. It polluted the strands of memory like poison, and poison was always placed deliberately. It lay like a cloud of smoke over his brother's life, almost as far back as their childhood…and to the exact moment that the Hulk had bashed Loki repeatedly into the floor, finally ending his mad dreams of conquest. After that, there were only tendrils, only scars, and Loki's mind had grown clearer by the year. The sight of all the damage that had been done only made the signs of healing all the more gratifying to see.

But even the thickest smoke could only obscure. Seeing with fresh eyes, Thor was not fooled. Beyond that, even beneath the pall of poisonous manipulations…differences remained between how he saw the world and how his brother did.

For the first time, Thor saw himself as Loki saw him…and saw his brother as he saw himself.

In Loki's eyes, Thor was a titan that shined like the sun. He was glorious and strong and wonderful and terrifying, a figure of protection and warmth and safety as well as a figure of vengeance and fire and pain.

He cast a very long shadow.

In Loki's eyes, he himself was a shadow, a featureless shape black as the deepest cavern in a cave. Except for his eyes, which shifted between the familiar green and the cold blue and even occasionally flashed red.

Thor's fresh eyes saw a hundred little slights that Loki had born, each too slight for his brother to think worth mentioning on their own for fear of mockery from everyone around him. He saw a thousand little cuts that had wounded his brother over years, piling on top of one another, until Loki had been all but choking on blood and asking for help had been impossible because to open his mouth was to drown in scorn that hadn't been entirely imagined.

He saw Loki become more and more an insubstantial, silent, disregarded thing, darker and more subdued by the year, saw how he became Thor's shadow and the entire world failed to see him unless it was Thor they sought. The people around him, the very people who were supposed to love him, were the ones to shove Loki deeper into the dark.

_He saw Loki shatter into pieces upon learning the truth about his heritage – "I am the monster parents tell their children about!" He saw how Loki put himself back together, his proud, stubborn brother, and he saw all the many ways Loki did it ever so slightly wrong, so that what came up from the Vaults was his brother twisted and broken and irrevocably changed. Thor thought of all the ways things might have gone differently if Odin hadn't already been exhausted, if Mother had been there, if Thor had never agreed to go to Jotunheim…_

* * *

_It was raining. He could hear the fat drops pounding against the roof of the plane as they flew, hear the wind rushing by in a screaming howl outside. But that was fine, that was _fine_, it didn't mean anything, it was just a storm, things were going well and there was…_

_Lightning flashed. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, outside the cockpit window, and Loki jumped where he sat, feeling his heart constricting in his chest. There was suddenly too little air in his lungs and a roaring in his ears. No no no no _no_…_

_"What's the matter?" He looked up in surprise, fear, to see the man in the strange suit of armor, looking archly back at him. "Scared of a little lightning?"_

_Loki found himself torn between the desire to laugh and sob. Instead, he just focused on keeping his voice as level as he could, too proud even now to let these miserable, wretched humans see him shake. "I'm not overly fond of what follows." _

_That was an understatement so great as to be almost a falsehood in its own right, and then _there it was_, a rolling clap of thunder that he felt shake the walls at his back, and in it, Loki felt something in the fabric of the world _change_, a shivering frisson of fear down his spine._

_He knew what was about to happen a second before the plane jerked under the force of something landing heavily on the roof. The humans were chattering in surprise, but it didn't matter, none of it mattered, because _he was here_ and Loki had nowhere to run. The safest place for him was in this plane, because outside was the storm, and the storm was _his_…_

_And even that wasn't safe, because nowhere was safe from _him_. There was an unholy rending sound of metal tearing through the cabin, and Loki knew that he should run, get ready to fight, _stand_, but he felt as cornered and trapped as a rabbit before the wolf, because the hanger door was being wrenched open and outside was the night, the storm, _him_…_

_Thor strode forward, and Loki found himself grabbed in a grip of iron. Limbs heavy with shock and fear, useless and weak and pathetic as he was, he felt himself being dragged to the edge and no no no no _no not again…

_He fell._

* * *

_Do something, Loki screamed at himself. Do something, say something, stop this! Your silver tongue is all you have, it's the only thing you're good for, this was your fault! You started this, you have to stop it! _

_Watching Thor and Odin argue as fiercely as any two combatants he had ever known, the king and his best beloved son, even opening his mouth was suddenly harder than anything Loki had ever done before. He managed it, just once, even as he felt about to be sick with the tension thrumming through this room and his own fear of what was about to happen._

_He'd barely gotten one word out before Odin looked at him and _growled_ in anger and that was all it took, whingeing coward that he was, and Loki felt his mouth slam shut of its own accord and silence take him. Even now, even in this, even in _words_, he was so pathetically weak that Father didn't even want to waste the time of letting him speak._

_Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe not. Maybe he could have at least fallen with Thor. But by the time Loki properly realized what was happening, the burst of sheer _power_ from Mjolnir to Thor threw him back and kept him away and all he could do was watch as Thor, confused and afraid and _cast out_, was thrown back through the Bifrost and across the vast, vast, endless darkness of space, out of reach and _gone_ while Loki could only watch helplessly. _

* * *

_What was Thor doing? _

_Loki stared at his brother where he stood, floundering and apparently helpless, in the steel trap meant for the monster even now rampaging through the doomed ship. Except Thor wasn't helpless, Thor was never helpless, he'd cracked the damn wall with one blow of Mjolnir and another would finish the job. Why wasn't he making it? _

_Was he afraid? Afraid to face Loki? So scared that he would rather plummet to the ground thirty thousand feet below? No, Loki thought with a rush of anger in his heart. Not scared to fight me. Scared to _hurt_ me. He remembered the last time they'd fought, where however savagely he'd attacked, Thor had blocked his blows, however much he'd tried to _hurt_, Thor hadn't hurt him back. Glorious, magnanimous Thor, showing such mercy and restraint towards his foes…_

_Or maybe he just hoped Loki would show mercy. _

_The thought almost made him smile. None had been shown him, and so Loki saw no reason why his brother should be so fortunate. No mercy, no forgiveness. Let him know how it _burned_. _

_Now you'll know, Loki thought savagely. What it's like to fall. _

_He hit the button, and knew that the sight of Thor's eyes, their expression of mingled fear and pain and betrayal, as his brother fell out of sight, would stay with him forever. It had been like looking in a mirror._

* * *

_Whatever happened next wouldn't be his fault. He'd only meant to disrupt the coronation. It had been Thor's choice to act like such a raging barbarian, Thor's choice to shout and stamp his feet like a petulant child, to throw a tantrum in the feast set for _his _honor, and now it was Thor's choice to go to Jotunheim and cause even more trouble. _

_Let him. Loki could only do so much to keep his rampaging brother in line. He meant to stay here, out of the way and out of trouble. He'd even tried to sooth Thor's wounded temper, it wasn't his fault that his brother had taken that as _approval_. _

_A small, utterly childish part of him whispered, as he saw Thor go to work marshalling his warrior friends, exulting them to battle and glory, that it really didn't make a difference what he wanted or would do in any case. Thor was long past the point of dragging his younger brother along on his adventures. Have you forgotten all that we have done together, Thor was asking, his back to Loki. _

_Loki hated himself for falling into step behind them, anyway, as they marched out of the hall together. Even insinuating himself where he hadn't been asked but at least hadn't been strictly forbidden was better than being left behind. _

* * *

And then Thor saw that night at the broken Bifrost that had changed the fate of worlds. Thor saw that night for the first time as Loki saw it, as Loki had been _made_ to see it even if he knew now that it had probably taken so very little encouragement.

_The force of the explosion left Loki's ears ringing. The world had gone white, and left spots dancing in his eyes as his vision slowly returned. _

_Every inch of him felt bruised, but Loki nevertheless tried to push himself upright. He shook his head dazedly to clear it, and as he did so, realized he'd landed at the edge of the Bifrost, perilously close to going over. Just scant inches more…_

_And then Loki looked, really looked, at where he was and what was around him. His heart leapt into his throat, his mind spun with disbelief, because Thor had really done it. The…_fool_ had actually broken the Bifrost. Its shattered, jagged, broken edges were close enough to reach out and touch. _

_And for _what?_ For Jotunheim? For the giants? For _monsters_? _

_Thor had been the one to break the peace in the first place! Why did he get to condemn the giants to death and then turn around and declare them worthy of life? _

_He _didn't understand_, and no one was explaining! It certainly wasn't because of him, what he was…_

_Loki made it to his feet, shaking his head to try and clear it. He found himself looking out over the edge, so close, so perilously close to that long, endless fall, and he staggered back in fear. His mind was such a whirl, trying to process what had happened, what it meant, that he didn't realize Thor was behind him until his brother grabbed the hand holding Gungnir and _twisted_ hard enough for Loki to cry out in pain, feeling his bones grind together. The great spear clattered to the ground at their feet. Loki whirled with a desperate snarl, bringing his other hand around, but Thor took the blow without flinching and left Loki doubled over and wheezing with a hard blow to the stomach. _

_This wasn't right. Thor wasn't supposed to be this strong, Thor wasn't supposed to _hurt_…_

_"You _fool_," Loki heard himself growl, in between struggled gasps for breath. "Do you have…_any_ idea what you've done?"_

_"What had to be done," said Thor, and his voice was steady and cold. Loki stared up at this man, his brother, a man he'd thought until scant days before that he knew better than anyone. _

_A stranger's eyes looked back at him, empty of all emotion except contempt. Loki found himself trying to move back, to move away, to _run_, because he did not know this man at all and he did not know what Thor would do to him like this. He remembered only just in time that there was nowhere to go. But it was too late, it didn't matter, because the next thing Loki felt was Thor's hand around his throat. _

_The warrior lifted him bodily from the bridge until his feet were off the ground, and Loki scrabbled desperately to find some bit of flesh in reach that was soft enough to tear and make Thor let _go_. But even as he scraped and scratched at Thor's hand, it tightened, until Loki realized that he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, Thor was choking him, Thor was _killing_ him…_

_"Brother," he rasped with his last breath. "_Please_…"_

_The death grip loosened, until Loki could breathe, just enough for the grey shadows to fade from his eyes. But it wasn't a comforting sight, having vision clear enough to look Thor in the eyes once more. Loki saw then that this wasn't mercy. Just a delay. Just another few moments. _

_Not very many moments, either, as Thor stepped with slow, deliberate movements, to the very edge of the bridge, and Loki realized with a lurch that there was nothing beneath him but the _fall_. Loki heard himself cry out in terror, and for lack of anything else to hold on to, he held on as tightly as he could to Thor's hand around his neck. _

_"Do not," said Thor, in a voice like the rumble of thunder that heralded the storm. "Call me that." Now there wasn't just contempt in his eyes. Now there was something Loki realized with a shiver was hate. He wanted to look away, wanted to hide himself from that gaze, but there was nowhere else to look, nothing else living and alive in the world, it was that or the dark._

_ Even after everything he'd done, he'd never thought…he hadn't wanted…_

_How had it come to this point? How could Thor even…he hadn't thought Thor was capable…_

_He _didn't understand_, and no one was explaining_. _And Loki realized with a cold certainty in the pit of his stomach that he'd never have the chance. _

_"For my father," Thor said, and his voice should not be this calm. "For my mother. For the home you _invaded_ and _tarnished_, you _monster…_I cast you out!" _

_And then he threw Loki into the abyss, and Loki just wasn't strong enough to hold on as he was cast aside for good. _

_He fell into the Void's waiting, hungry embrace, and he welcomed it. _

And then Thor saw some of what happened next. It wasn't easy. It wasn't a clear point in time, and the memories were clouded a bright, cold blue with an influence he still remembered all too well. But the Other had seen no need to obscure these memories. No, it had almost certainly wanted Loki to remember.

His brother had resisted, at first. Broken and lost and thinking himself utterly alone in all the Nine Realms, Loki had still dug in his heels and _resisted_ when he was found and offered the chance of conquest. Even though the undeniable truth of this made Thor so impossibly proud of his brother, it also made it worse, because like this, it meant he had to watch Loki's resistance break.

_No, _he'd said at first. _I will not, I am no one's servant, I do not want, it doesn't matter, you can't make me, you can't, I won't, _get out_…_

_But here, here was where the Other had gotten its claws into his brother's head, here was where the poison still, even now, lay thick and fast, like a hidden fault-line waiting even now to trip unwary feet, a knot buried deep in weary muscles, the remnants of an old fever in the blood. Here is where that _thing_ had spread its darkness to the rest of Loki's memories, carving into his soul that he was weak, worthless, unwanted, forgotten, cast out, _monster_…_

_Until Loki's protests and refusals and resistances had crumbled in the face of attacks from within and without, until he hadn't had the strength to disbelieve anymore and yes, let me help, let me strike back, give me the strength, let me hurt them and make them pay, they deserve it, they expect it, let me rule them, I'll do anything, please rule me because _freedom is life's great lie_…_

And Thor knew it wasn't that simple. He couldn't help but wonder if the Other could have carved those scars into Loki's soul if the marks hadn't already been there, if he might have better endured were he not already in such _pain_. If Loki had felt safe enough to reach out, he could have done it when Mother found him.

Instead, at the moment when Loki accepted the scepter, Thor felt only a fierce, howling, painful joy, a rush of it that nearly overwhelmed him…

* * *

_Writing the scene of Thor gathering the troops before the trip to Jotunheim was especially painful, because I did go back and watch that scene, and Thor really does deliver those rousing speeches to his friends without acknowledging Loki once. The camera work is incredibly well done and evocative._

_Beyond that, the implication I was going for here is that Thor was not so self aware back then as to see himself as he really was. It's just that Loki also saw him the way Thor did back then - a glorious, mighty, unstoppable, untouchable warrior. And also that Loki doesn't even remember that night at the Bifrost the same way twice, because the Other is a creepy, creepy bastard. _

_And I figured it made sense for Thor to have an easier time traveling Loki's mind, because Thor is just more mentally together even without the psychological torture aftereffects involved. At least until he gets to the actual memories of that torture, which I maintain was probably pretty deeply awful.  
_


	5. A Leap of Faith

…before he found himself, awake and alive and present and _real_, laying on the very real floor. That was the first thing Thor knew upon waking. The second thing was that, to his dull surprise, Loki was there, kneeling over him, one hand holding tightly to his in a shaking grip and the other resting on his forehead. His brother's eyes were strangely unfocused, but only for a second. Then he, too, came back to the real world, and Thor saw Loki's eyes light up with relief when their gazes met, saw him smile very faintly. When Thor tried to push himself upright, Loki was there with a hand on his back to steady him. Thor saw as he sat up that he was not where he'd been, out in the hall. Instead, the door to Loki's cell was open, and his brother had clearly dragged him inside to recover from…

From…

"I'm sorry," Loki said quietly, and that more than anything got Thor to look at his brother in undisguised surprise, because Loki had come very, very far in the last several years, but a true, spoken apology from him was as rare as an alignment between the Nine Realms. Indeed, Loki looked truly apologetic, to the point that he could no longer meet Thor's gaze, fidgeting where he sat like a chastised child.

"I…try not to think about it. Then," the sorcerer went on in a mumble. "Most days, I don't. I suppose I thought you wouldn't, either. I forgot, it would all still seem so…raw, to you."

It took Thor a long second to realize that Loki had been tortured until he was nearly beyond even Thor's recognition, and he was apologizing that Thor had seen even a glimpse of it.

The warrior felt his throat tighten to the point that he nearly couldn't breathe, felt his eyes sting with sympathy and love. And then he reached over and carefully, _gently_, wrapped his arms around Loki in a soft hug. This time, it was less because he wanted to remind Loki that he was loved, and more to remind Loki that he was safe. That he wanted to give Loki something kind and loving in the face of those memories that he had been forced to relive, even if only to pull Thor out before he lost himself.

Loki slumped against Thor with a soft, shuddering sigh, a sign of weakness he would only allow himself down here in the dark, only let Thor see if he was just that tired. After a long second, he wrapped his arms around Thor in turn with a fierceness that was surprising even now, and just…held on. Thor moved one hand to the back of Loki's neck, rubbing lightly in that gesture of affection that had always, somehow, been uniquely theirs'.

For a long moment, they just clung to one another, as they hadn't done since they were very small, as their minds sorted themselves back into their proper places and states. Then, with some obvious reluctance, Loki pushed himself back and away.

"You should go," he said softly, still seemingly unable to even look at Thor. "You should pay a visit to Mother. She'll be able to make certain that nothing's been…left behind."

"I think…" said Thor, very carefully. "…that I should bring Mother down here."

He tried to phrase the suggestion for what it was – a suggestion. If Loki truly still did not want to involve their parents, Thor resolved that he would keep quiet. Even though what he'd seen had only made him more worried for Loki…his brother had earned the right to decide what he did with his own mind. Up until now, Loki had been doing well. Perhaps, with some time to rest and recover himself mentally, with some time to think on what he'd seen in Thor's mind, h would do well once more. Time might not be able to heal all wounds, but it could certainly help.

Because this had never been about changing Loki. It had always been about giving Loki a chance to change, to understand, learn, and trusting that he would take it. The fact that he had was what had come to matter most. Yes, he'd dug in his heels sometimes. But he'd always let Thor drag him along.

Loki closed his eyes as though the very suggestion pained him, his breath catching in his throat. _You're safe_, Thor wanted to say. _I am here for you. We only wish to help you be well. _But he didn't say such things aloud, because to so openly acknowledge Loki's distress was to wound him with it. Instead, Thor only kept his hand on the back of Loki's neck, ran a hand through his brother's hair, gestures of affection that were normal by now between them and so didn't _have _to mean anything if Loki didn't want them to. Even if they were meant to convey the words unsaid.

This time, however, they seemed to. At long last, Loki nodded, just once, in that way he had that said _do it before I see sense. _

Thor nodded, not bothering to hide his relieved smile. He hugged Loki tightly once more, before hurrying away from the cell and up the stairs to fetch Mother to finally set things to right.

Mother looked borderline aghast to hear what they'd been up to, and her expression was grim when she hurried down to the cells once more with him. To Thor's surprise, and selfishly his relief, Loki was the one who received the brunt of her worried lecturing. _You don't know enough about this sort of magic_, she was saying. _You chose to disregard it, and to make the attempt now, when you knew you weren't feeling up to it, to involve your brother as well…_

"I knew what I was getting into," Thor lied, from his place by the door.

"No, you didn't," said Loki simply. His voice had that slightly dreamy, faraway quality it got when he was trying to think in the real world and the arcane at the same time. With Frigga guiding him, now, he could actually manage such divided attentions. "I didn't, either."

Thor fell silent, feeling himself smile wryly. Only Mother had ever been able to bring out this…docility, in Loki. Thor knew how much his younger brother nearly worshipped their mother, knew even better now just how deep that love ran because it was one of the very few things about him that the Other hadn't been able to entirely pollute.

Thor and Frigga sat together in the center of his cell, legs crossed before them, hands joined. Thor could see very little of what was transpiring between them, but Loki gave the occasional sign. A twitch, a flinch, a soft, shuddering sigh. Whatever Frigga was seeing in his mind wasn't enough to break her trance-like calm, and whatever she was allowing Loki to see in hers' seemed to keep him calm.

But even as Thor watched, Loki nearly doubled over where he sat with a choked gasp of what could only be pain. His grip on Frigga's hands was suddenly tight enough that his knuckles went white.

Thor couldn't even remember moving, just that he was suddenly by Loki's side once more. Then he remembered himself, remembered what was going on, and looked to Frigga worriedly for some sign of what, if anything, he could do. Frigga nodded at him in silent encouragement and, this close, Thor could see that she wasn't quite so unaffected by the state of Loki's mind and memories as she had first appeared. There was a shadow in her eyes, and signs of pain that were well suppressed but present all the same. Hidden for Loki's sake.

Such was the way of mothers, Thor supposed, feeling a fresh stab of love for her as well.

Frigga could not touch Loki, like this, couldn't break the link of their joined hands. But Thor could, he could rub Loki's back or run a hand through his hair, give him something grounding to the physical world, and so he did. Frigga, in turn, could still speak, and she did, soft and soothing. "Remember where you are, Loki. You are here, with me, with your brother. Whatever you are seeing has passed, now. It cannot harm you any longer."

It felt like it took hours, but in reality, it was only a few seconds before Loki seemed to remember how to breathe normally, before he straightened up where he sat and the phantom pain seemed to leave him.

"Let's keep going," Loki said, a stubborn note audible in his voice despite how faint and distant he sounded. "I…I can keep going. We've almost found it."

Frigga nodded, squeezing his hands lightly. "If you want to."

"I do. I…" He bowed his head, trying to breathe around another flash of phantom pain. It passed after a second, however, as one more knot of poison was undone, and Loki smiled in relief to feel it. "For what it's worth, brother," he said softly, tilting his head slightly against Thor's hand. "I do hope you're right about this."

"For what it's worth, brother," Thor replied, laying a hand on the back of Loki's neck. "I hope I am, too."

He had learned all too well that day what an ephemeral thing memory was even without outside influences. Thinking back, Thor truly wasn't sure now if he would ever be entirely certain of anything in his past ever again. But sometimes you couldn't be certain. Sometimes you just had to take a leap of faith, and trust in the people around you to paint a picture of the past and chart out a course to the future.

In the end, Thor was just glad to have taken this step with Loki, been allowed by his brother to reach this new level of understanding with him. It gave him hope that, when the day finally came when Loki's sentence was at an end, they would be able to truly face the future together.

Until then, Thor sat with Loki, doing what he could to soothe him through the pain of his mind being made fully his own again. More than anything, he was glad to be able to do something to help put his little brother just this little bit more back together.

* * *

_And there we have it! Endings to these fics are never easy, but I hope this one satisfied. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! _


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